Alex Vargas
The young Dane with South American roots became famous thanks to the collaboration with the band Above & Beyond. However, his very production is quite exceptional: gentle soul melodies are highlighted by vocal rock drive in chorus and a minimalistic but expressive electronic music enhances the guitar sound.
05. April 2016
The Danish singer Alex Vargas started in the band Vagabond, and already at the age of 21, he performed with them at Glastonbury and T in the Park. The Guardian wrote about the band at that time that they had the potential of becoming the biggest new band in the world. Vargasʼ sense of song writing was even likened to U2 and The Verve. However, the band broke up and Vargas continued in his solo career. The next milestone was his collaboration with the band Above & Beyond. As an author and singer, he participated in five songs of their fourth album, We Are All We Need. The album debuted on the first place in the US Dance / Electronic Albums (Billboard) chart and the 12th place in the UK Official Album Charts. Since 2014, he has been collaborating with Tommy Sheen in studio and on stage. The two produce highly poetic songs where soul, rock, and electronic music are combined in an interesting way. Vargasʼ sense of melody is best illustrated in the songs “Solid Ground”, “Shackled Up”, “Howl”, and “Till Forever Runs Out”. Among their YouTube videos, those more popular are rather various “acoustic sessions” than studio versions, as the first are close to his live performances, which are characterized by immediate and insistent expression.
We went to see Alex Vargas live at Eurosonic and Spot festivals. At Spot, as a local musician, he won his audience, mainly British agents and ladies, in one of the greatest concert halls. The longest queue was before his concerts at Eurosonic, where half the people did not make it to get inside the venue. The audience were again mainly women and the overall impression of the concert was best expressed by a waitress who stopped serving after the first tones of his music. Well, she did not even have to, because almost no one ordered anything until the end of the performance. After that, our colleagues Veronika and Majka requested to invite him to Pohoda. Alex made a great impression on the Clash magazine journalists who wrote about his concert: “With his riveting, poetic, and openly emotional and enthusiastic approach, Vargas gets crowds of fans. Get ready to becoming one of them that after his performance”.